Many biologically important molecules have a carbonyl group as a key functional component. Thus the peptide backbone is a chain of amides; steroid hormones contain the acrolein subgroup, and vitamin k and coenzyme Q contain para-quinone substructures. Szent-Gyorgyi has even postulated that the action of glyoxal on the amides in peptides is an important cancer regulating mechanism. In spite of their importance the electronic structures of these compounds are poorly understood. There is serious debate over the possibility of low energy biradical structures. Spectroscopy, without theory, has been unable to unravel the spectra satisfactorily. With modern computers, ab initio quantum chemistry is able to compute the excitation energies of simple systems to within plus or minus eV. These computations use contradicted Cartesian Gaussian basis sets, generalized SCF procedures for each state, and extensive CI and/or perturbation theory. Our immediate objective is to determine the equilibrium geometry of the excited triplet states of N-methyl acetamide, the nature of the excited V state of dimethyl formamide, and the energy and nature of the excited states of acrolein and para-quinone. Concurrently we will investigate the possibility of a low energy biradical charge transfer complex between ammonia or formamide and glyoxal or methyl glyoxal.